The impact of advertising and other presented information can be significantly increased if the content can be adapted to a given target audience. The success of any advertising campaign, for example, requires that the advertisements reach the target audience. Generally, a particular advertising or informative message is targeted for one or more segments of a population, with media planners determining the best way to reach the target audience.
Typically, prior to executing an advertising campaign, media planners attempt to predict the best media options to reach a target audience. In addition, during a given advertising campaign, it is helpful to measure the exposure of the target audience to the advertising messages, since media planners might make corrections in order to optimize the implementation of the media plan. Likewise, after a given advertising campaign, media planners often analyze the advertising campaign to confirm that the advertising messages reached the target audience.
While the audience demographics associated with most media vehicles are well defined, the dynamic nature of some media vehicles makes predicting the audience demographics in advance difficult, if not impossible. For example, large screen displays, such as information kiosks, are often utilized in public places to present advertisements and other information to people passing by the displays. Typically, the content that is presented to the public on such a display is generally suitable for the location where the display is installed. For example, airports and other transportation terminals often use such displays to present schedules and other information of interest to passengers.
Thus, tailoring the content to such a dynamic audience is difficult. While such displays and information kiosks have been effective for presenting general information to large audiences, they suffer from a number of limitations, which if overcome, could greatly expand their utility and effectiveness. Specifically, since the demographics of the audience in such public places cannot be accurately predicted in advance, any presented content must generally appeal to the population at large.
A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for automatically evaluating the demographics of an audience in real-time and for tuning the content of information that is presented on a large display screen or an information kiosk to the current audience. A further need exists for a method and apparatus for evaluating the reaction of an audience to presented content in real-time. Yet another need exists for a method and apparatus for estimating the size of an audience in real-time. Finally, a need exists for a method and apparatus for generating reports on the exposure of various population segments to presented content. In this manner, the reports provide a feedback mechanism that allows the content providers and advertisers to reach the target audience in an efficient manner.